Maybe this will help you in your decision? Hatred + Government + Disarmed Civilians = Genocide

Lol, the reality is that it would be the gun owners, being the dumb fucks they are, that will actually believe the propaganda put forth by a wantabe fascist or dictatorial government - just as they do in the present day with parties full of business criminals like the Republicans. Such people will bully those who want freedom into submitting. Rednecks love a bit of bullying.

Sadly, that point is making a lot of sense... it slipped my attention :(

I bet that corporate think tanks must have factored that in the equation long time ago... a run away train... :(

The individual states could therefore, if they wanted, establish their own state church, or whatever. (I've been trying to find if it was interpreted that way, but haven't found a source yet.)

Your source is the Constitution.

What I meant was, I wasn't sure whether, at that time, some states had in fact established a church. It would not be surprising, as many of the states started as colonies with an official religion (Rhode Island by the Baptists; Pennsylvania by the Quakers and so on). I don't know if that continued on beyond when they became a "state."

This bit from Wikipedia suggests that state churches were disestablished when the colonies became states, at least for Connecticut:

Congregationalism remained the established church in Connecticut throughout the Revolutionary Period, although, with time, more dominations were exempted as "sober dissenting" churches. With the adoption of Connecticut's 1818 state constitution, the Congregational Church was disestablished and separation of church and state finally came to Connecticut.

DHodges wrote:In particular, if the Second Amendment was a limitation on the federal government and not on the states, then could not the rest of the Bill of Rights also be read that way?

For instance, what about First Amendment rights like freedom of speech?

Actually, the First Amendment is even more limited, as it specifically states, "Congress shall make no law respecting..." which clearly defines the scope as only applying to the Federal government. The individual states could therefore, if they wanted, establish their own state church, or whatever. (I've been trying to find if it was interpreted that way, but haven't found a source yet.)

[That some states had an established church] would not be surprising, as many of the states started as colonies with an official religion (Rhode Island by the Baptists; Pennsylvania by the Quakers and so on). I don't know if that continued on beyond when they became a "state."

Right. And thatâ€™s precisely what the Constitution was designed to protect. On what grounds, if many of the colonies already had their established religions (and the early settlers were very religious people) would they unite if the federal government could then turn around and tell them what religion must be the established religion of all the states ratifying the Constitution (European settlers--such as those to be found in PA--had escaped that whole state religion thing by coming to America)?

The Fourteenth Amendment came, of course, after the American Civil War, which violated the â€œall men are equalâ€ preamble ratified by the Constitution with ex slaves in the Confederate States. So, the federal government was, in fact, rightfully acting within its legal capacity.

Iâ€™m not sure how this gets mixed up with the First Amendment, except by a creative stretch of imagination? I suppose that if part of your religious beliefs are that blacks are inferior and do not have the right to hold property or are not citizens, or even human, there might be a problem. Maybe you would have to simply hold that they are not men but animals, since â€œmenâ€ is the exact word.

Obviously, we still see that mentality in so many ways, even here on the Genius Forum. Perhaps it should read, "all geniuses are created equal..." and go on from there. Somehow, I don't think that would cut it. I reckon that'd be about the only sentence comprising the Constitution, then.

But the real reason we have 2nd Amendment rights is so that, if you are being oppressed by the government, you can take direct political action.

"The only way that I can put it in a context that you might understand is that my brother went to war tonight with the people that were of the government that was putting torment and strife into his life," Thornton told KMOV.

"And he had spoke on it as best he could in the courts and they denied him all access to the rights of protection, and therefore he took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue."

Hey, they doing this at your place? Car insurance company saying join us we dont blame you if you wreck your car and other cars, people, accident forgiveness they call it, not enough this so adding also when car is total loss we give you new car 1 YEAR NEWER than the car crashed up! Amazing no?

How sweet are these companies, how understanding, BUT if you get a little ticket from the street police then watch out- your rate increase to the ceeling! Just go 50 in a 40mph zone and we puniish you severly, and remain on your record for (sit down!) FIVE YEARS, then 10 times worst if done twice (in five years!) however, wipeout a few cars send a few people to the hospital kill a cat or dog and we give a newer car than you had before and forgive the whole thing! lol

I mean, wtf is this? Pinch me am i in dream!

So they know they can control your expense much easier by increase with speeding tickets, so no need to use accidents to keep rate high. And since accident very rare compared, and they allow only select drivers to have deal (probably the 5% least likely to ever make a crash) the whole thing make little problem for them. Genius!

Available to "ALL qualifying drivers"! Well which won is it, either all can have or just some? Lets see, if you had accident last year on a sunday then, no, you dont qualify. hahamight as well!

-Crazy Man--mansman-Hey, they doing this at your place? Car insurance company saying join us we dont blame you if you wreck your car and other cars, people, accident forgiveness they call it, not enough this so adding also when car is total loss we give you new car 1 YEAR NEWER than the car crashed up! Amazing no?

-tomas-Hey, anything that leads to the overthrow of American Capitalism. Viva Le-Revolucion!

-Crazy Man-How sweet are these companies, how understanding, BUT if you get a little ticket from the street police then watch out- your rate increase to the ceeling! Just go 50 in a 40mph zone and we puniish you severly, and remain on your record for (sit down!) FIVE YEARS, then 10 times worst if done twice (in five years!) however, wipeout a few cars send a few people to the hospital kill a cat or dog and we give a newer car than you had before and forgive the whole thing! lol

-tomas-Well then, your Visa Permit is up. Scramoose already.

-Crazy Man-I mean, wtf is this? Pinch me am i in dream!

-tomas-I have some homies up in Far Rockaway that will put you in a permanent dream-state.

-Crazy Man-So they know they can control your expense much easier by increase with speeding tickets, so no need to use accidents to keep rate high. And since accident very rare compared, and they allow only select drivers to have deal (probably the 5% least likely to ever make a crash) the whole thing make little problem for them. Genius!

-tomas-Hey, you don't like socialism, move to Canada.

-Crazy Man-Available to "ALL qualifying drivers"! Well which won is it, either all can have or just some? Lets see, if you had accident last year on a sunday then, no, you dont qualify. hahamight as well!

The right to bear arms wont do you any good unless you are a part of the "Well Regulated Militia" the same 2nd amendment speaks of.

No damnit. We have the right to bear arms because of the well regulated militia - the sort of militia that had been used in France during the St. Bartholmew's Day massacre. The militia controlled by the crown (in cahoots with the church) that was turned against the unarmed people.

Now let's get this straight. We can talk of rescinding our constitutional rights, but let's understand what the 2nd amendment says, (and the bitter memories that led to it).

Before we start, let us please remember that the word "state" refers to a country. We were supposed to be a coalition of country-like states, thus the United States. But we also refer to countries as states, such as "the state of Israel." Also, the word militia means "army."

Here it is:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed."

In other words, "Because any country will of course need to maintain an army, therefore the people have the right to defend themselves against the army by having guns of their own."

Like if they declare martial law and start taking people out of their homes at 4 am to the gulag, you've got a fighting chance to make them think twice about it. If the government goes bad, who will they use for the threat of force? Why, the army most likely, or some form thereof.

And like Hodges said before he began doubting himself, a man who doesn't have the right to defend himself is not a free man.

Sure, modern weaponry means that ultimately it would be hard for the people to win, but don't be so sure. Don't we keep losing all these guerilla wars in countries like Vietnam and Iraq? If they have to go house to house, and face angry people with guns, a lot of the government/military goons will get their faces shot off.

And frankly, if the government tried to take us off our land, my neighbors and I would form a militia real fast. It's understood that people will defend themselves both singly and in groups.

I mean, the idea that some people promote, that the right to bear arms is for the militia, is so fucking stupid. What army doesn't bear arms? Gandhi's?

Iolaus wrote:And like Hodges said before he began doubting himself, a man who doesn't have the right to defend himself is not a free man.

I've done a lot of reading since then, and the Supreme Court also has ruled, in the meantime, that the right to bear arms is an individual right and not a collective right.

It was well understood at the time of the writing of the Constitution that the Bill of Rights did not grant anyone rights; it just listed rights men naturally had, which government should not infringe upon.

The second amendment, in particular, is a statement of a natural right of free men. Many people thought it was unnecessary to write such a thing, as it was so obvious. (The Second Amendment should be read along with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; there is nothing in the Constitution that allows the Federal government to restrict gun ownership in any way.)

The militia thing was an example of a reason why a man might need to be armed and why it was politically important to recognize it. (Hunting and self-defense are two other examples.)

The 20th Century gives many examples of the importance of this right, especially of people needing to protect themselves from their own government. During the 20th Century, about 170 million people were killed by their own governments. The typical pattern was for a group to be disarmed, their weapons confiscated, and then those people would be rounded up and killed.

The Jews in Germany are the most well known example, but there were many such genocides during the 20th Century.

DHodges wrote:During the 20th Century, about 170 million people were killed by their own governments. The typical pattern was for a group to be disarmed, their weapons confiscated, and then those people would be rounded up and killed.

I hope that not all of the considerable reading you have done is on NRA propaganda websites.

I assume you have checked this figure out and can say this does not include a government killing any of its citizens by sending them into war. Not that I am defending that on moral grounds - or any other grounds - but you do know this link is ultimately funded by weapons manufacturers and fueled by the fears their products create, both in war- and peacetime, in third-world countries and right in your backyard. It's propaganda, pure and simple. Weapons don't kill people, people do; but it's usually people with weapons who do the killing. And the people who benefit from weapons ownership the most are the people who make them, regardless of who buys them or to what use they are put.

And you know what? In a "civilized" society like ours, it's often the people with the weapons who are often the ones getting killed. You get a bunch of cops surrounding a holed-up guy, with or without a hostage, if that guy is unarmed, he is more likely to come out of the situation alive. Wouldn't you agree?

And at Kent State, if any of the students had possessed and used guns, there would have been a lot more than four of them shot down.

I know I shouldn't be bringing up "a bunch of cops," because they undermine my argument with you and make you want to go out and buy more guns. I believe I agree with many of your sentiments about governance, and when I see three squad cars with lights flashing surrounding a single motorist who has just run a red light, I start wishing my old Neon had some photon torpedoes.

If they have to go house to house, and face angry people with guns, a lot of the government/military goons will get their faces shot off.

You can rest assured they will not go house to house. In Panama they dropped the bombs from the skies. I'm talking about the US army, of course. We were not able to hide because we did not know when they were doing this.

But Shah, every situation is different. The U.S. has indeed dropped bombs on way too many countries. In a domestic situation things could take different routes. Of course, if a community banded together, they might drop bombs or send in swat teams. Like Waco, Texas.

Brokenhead,

I think that the right to bear arms and defend oneself is a fundamental right, and there are indeed precedents for it, despite perhaps some over the top propaganda and fear mongering. Fear mongering is unfortunate, and common, in various different arenas. But I do not think that the right of people to bear arms should be infringed because in given circumstances individual people may use it foolishly, resisting arrest for example. There are also many examples of people who used their arms to defend themselves successfully, and the propagandists on the other side don't want you to know that. I mean think about it - if our government makes laws that you can't own a gun, in what way are we a free people?

Iolaus wrote:I mean think about it - if our government makes laws that you can't own a gun, in what way are we a free people?

Anna, that is a purely rhetorical question, and not a very effective one. The government has made laws about all sorts of things we can't do. I can't throw a plastic soda bottle away in my trash because we have recycling where I live. If I still smoked, I could not light up a cigarette in most public places around me.

The weakness is in the implementation. Ostensibly, all laws are passed with the best interest of the largest proportion of the populace as a goal. This is why legislatures act so slowly. The idea is always more freedom, even though the implementation often results in the curtailment of somebody's freedom. We aren't free to construct nuclear bombs, either. That restriction doesn't make me feel put upon.

We are not even free to wear disguises in public. It was in the news recently of a guy in FLA who was arrested because he went around to bars dressed up as Batman. My guess is he thought some dopey broads would go for it because it's not something you see every day. You do understand the rationale behind the no-disguises laws? In what way are we a free people if we cannot dress the way we like? In what way are we a free people if we have to dress at all, for that matter?

People aren't free to grow marijuana for their own consumption. There are old men in Texas prisons who were put there when they were just kids in the 1960's for getting caught with a couple of joints. Do you really think the right to own a gun makes us a free people? Or really any freer than we would be if ordinary citizens could not get guns?

Implementation. The guns are already out there. The genie is out of the bottle. Legislation probably could not fix anything now, not without the bloodshed that the legislation would be passed to prevent in the first place.

I trust Hodges with a gun. He sounds like a responsible owner. In Philadelphia, where we both live, the other day a man got out of his car and shot another man who was taking his eight-year-old daughter home. It was simple road rage. I don't trust guys like him with guns. Even if the victim had owned a gun, it would not have saved him from this senseless act.

So to set matters straight, I do not advocate removing weapons from private ownership, mostly because I do not see how such a thing could possibly be implemented in anything even approaching a safe manner. But there is no reason why we cannot make guns - especially handguns - harder to get. And require them to be more traceable, like with embedded microchips. Every state mandates that you pass a written and physical test before you can be licensed to drive a car. And a car's primary use is not supposed to be killing or injuring. Yet with the sale of devices whose sole purpose is killing or injuring, no test is required.

Every year, weapons manufacturers produce more and more firearms. Where are they all going? They must end up somewhere. My guess is that the number of arms in the US is growing faster than the population, which means more and more people are armed.

DHodges wrote:During the 20th Century, about 170 million people were killed by their own governments. The typical pattern was for a group to be disarmed, their weapons confiscated, and then those people would be rounded up and killed.

Then again, a similar case could be made for disarming civilians to prevent bloody civil wars: like the Russian revolution (15 million), US civil war (1 million), Iraq insurgence (half to one million for now), to name a few. With some creative calculations one could come to hundreds of millions of death because of civilian, non-state controlled conflicts involving firearms in two centuries.

What I suspect is that when you see a nation of [trained] gun owners, you see a nation with relative high safety and capacity for responsibility, pride, traditions and community. When disarming starts it's a sign of breaking down of these tings, not because of the strict gun laws, but the gun laws reflect the break down of some basic trust, lack of some basic social strength and cohesion. After that the chance on worse things like a crisis, a war, a militant regime and repression is increasing dramatically but not unavoidable.

DHodges wrote:During the 20th Century, about 170 million people were killed by their own governments. The typical pattern was for a group to be disarmed, their weapons confiscated, and then those people would be rounded up and killed.

I hope that not all of the considerable reading you have done is on NRA propaganda websites.

Just, to be clear here, the film Innocents Betrayed was not produced by the NRA. It was produced by the JPFO.

I think it's fair to say that the JPFO thinks the NRA is a bunch of pussies who don't do enough to oppose gun control and are far too willing to compromise. So it's fair to call it propaganda.

I realize we are not a free people. But some of your examples are not in the same ballpark. There are laws about people sharing common space. But we have way too many laws that infringe on fundamental freedoms. I think any plant can't be legislated as illegal to use. And I want food freedom. Who the hell is Schwarzenegger to tell me I can't drink raw milk? I gave my kids raw milk from the grocery store before his sorry ass ever lived in California. And what happens is, that the corporate guys who can pay the lobbyists get laws passed like this to make their legitimate business competition ILLEGAL. That's why the food in this country is so bad, and health too. There's a food war going on. People have greatly increased their understanding of raw milk, and it's getting shut down.

I definitely think it is downright scary that you can't go out dressed as batman. I wonder if that would have been true in the 70's?

But really, the right to self defense is about as basic as it gets.

The man who shot the other man in road rage - that's bad of course, but what I want to know is, what legal meds was he on? In a really strange outbreak of violence like that, it is the first question.

Shah says,

Yes, that is possible, but I want to make sure you take into account the air bomb scenario, when preparing for the unknown.

Iolaus wrote:The man who shot the other man in road rage - that's bad of course, but what I want to know is, what legal meds was he on? In a really strange outbreak of violence like that, it is the first question.

Whatever legal meds he was on, he probably wasn't taking them.

But that's just it. There are no checks for things like that. To my knowledge, it is not illegal for a blind man to own a hunting rifle. Things like that make me nervous.

It makes me nervous that the VTech shooter could go out and purchase guns and never have to explain to anybody what he wanted them for. Yet I have been approached on more than one occasion by a cop and asked to explain why I was sitting in my car for longer than he liked. The first time it was because I was 17 and had long hair. The last time was within the past year, and I still have all my hair, but I don't still look like a hippie. Both times he didn't like the way I looked for some reason, and both times I was given the same bullshit excuse - we have had reports of a stolen vehicle matching this description. What - you mean you accost everyone driving a Neon? I have seen black teenagers kicked off a subway car because one of them dared to eyeball a subway cop.

But no one checks in on gun owners.

With the laws the way they are, if it is legal for one citizen to arm himself, it must be legal for every citizen to do so. Yet everyone who owns a handgun - or any kind of weapon - gets old and dies. Many become mentally enfeebled by age along the way. Does anyone bother disarming them or checking to make sure all the necessary faculties for sound judgement are sill there?

There are too few safety precautions in place to make gun ownership less hazardous.

For instance, Dave, let me ask you this: If you were allowed to retain possession of any gun you decided to purchase, yet it became more difficult for other people to own guns, wouldn't you feel safer or as safe as you do now? The more weapons in the hands of other people, the less safe I feel. In fact, it makes me really think seriously of owning one and learning to use it properly just to keep up.

Is that really a desirable state of affairs? Doesn't it seem possible to envision any kind of safer societal status regarding weapons that can kill so easily?

Diebert wrote:What I suspect is that when you see a nation of [trained] gun owners, you see a nation with relative high safety and capacity for responsibility, pride, traditions and community. When disarming starts it's a sign of breaking down of these tings,

That sounds very sensible to me. Where do you see such a nation? Do you think the US is one? Do you think every gun owner in the US is trained, or even experienced with firearms?

I can only tell you things as I see them. And to be fair, I have known a good number of people who own guns. Most of them are just as you describe, responsible and with a knowledge of and respect for firearms. Maybe even all of them, since I cannot think offhand of any gun owner whom I have known who doesn't fit that profile.

Yet I have known many people who aren't even close to being such upstanding citizens, people who are downright human scum. I have had no way of knowing if any of them possessed guns, but some of them might well have.

If we could be sure that the gun owners were responsible, that would be one thing.

Your view of a breakdown of the good things in society evidenced by tighter gun control may very well be true. But it might also be a simple result of the existence of too many handguns, period. Guns do not deteriorate. With a little care, they exist forever. The gun manufacturers keep cranking more of them out. They wind up somewhere. What agency makes sure it is the solid citizen who always gets hold of them? You don't take old ones out of circulation like you do with currency.

And even the solid citizen can snap. Stricter gun control might be a sign of not the breakdown of society, but its maturation from a frontier to a more civilized form. It may be inevitable.

You seem to be advocating that the government disarm us, that we live under the thumb of the government. Well, largely, we already do, but it isn't entirely too late.

Whatever legal meds he was on, he probably wasn't taking them.

This is once again where you surprise me. You see, there's a lot of evidence that many of the youthful shooting sprees that seem to bizarre and which simply did not happen a generation and more ago, are the result of the antidepressent and other psychotropic meds that these kids and some adults are on. There are quite a few examples already known of the famous cases that you have heard of, although you have to dig for it because they don't mention it too easily, the MSM, you know.

And, having once taken one half of a zoloft because I thought it would act like a sleeping pill, I am quite sure that this is very possible. I was almost crazy from it, and was not normal for a week, and couldn't eat normally for a week.

Iolaus wrote:You seem to be advocating that the government disarm us, that we live under the thumb of the government. Well, largely, we already do, but it isn't entirely too late.

I'm not advocating that because I don't see how it could be done.

You see, there's a lot of evidence that many of the youthful shooting sprees that seem to bizarre and which simply did not happen a generation and more ago, are the result of the antidepressent and other psychotropic meds that these kids and some adults are on.

That may very well be, but I have not seen the evidence. You are saying that most Columbine-type incidents are linked in that the shooters were all taking medication that affects their minds. So we blame these tragedies on the pharmaceutical companies pushing doctors to over-prescribe? Pharmaceutical companies should be blamed because their product - one that can have a very beneficial use - was misused, but we don't blame the gun industry when their product is misused? Maybe that's the whole point: their products always do what they were designed to do.

A lot of factors go into shooting sprees. I picture the frontier days of America with everybody armed one way or another. There was no Big Pharma then, but I'm sure there were many wrongful deaths, many more than we have now. But civilization intervened between then and now, and the population grew faster than the number of guns. It's no longer a rite of passage that young men - and women - learn to shoot. The problem is just that. No training required, not enough proper respect for what a firearm is, too much TV, and no need to present a reason when acquiring a gun.

And, having once taken one half of a Zoloft because I thought it would act like a sleeping pill, I am quite sure that this is very possible. I was almost crazy from it, and was not normal for a week, and couldn't eat normally for a week

Zoloft is a prescription med for a reason. You did a foolish thing and had a bad reaction. You were lucky it wasn't worse.

Do you think the US is one? Do you think every gun owner in the US is trained, or even experienced with firearms?

The US is not like that. There is generally no training requirement to purchase a gun, but many states have such a requirement in order to carry a gun. I think the background check to purchase a gun (to make sure you are not a felon) is now a federal requirement, though. (As for unintended consequences, check this out.)

It used to be - I think up until the Gun Control Act of 1968 - anyone could purchase a gun through the mail. Gun dealers did not need to be licensed.

I think it would be hard to argue that the 1968 Gun Control Act has actually reduced gun violence. I think the National Firearms Act of 1934 was also ineffective in this regard.

If you really want to reduce gun violence, I think a strong argument could be made in favor of drug legalization - ending the "war on drugs." A large part of gun violence is related to drug trafficking in some way.